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Errant Behaviors

Errant Behaviors is a video and sound installation by Anne Wilson on which I collaborated by composing and producing all of the 4-channel sound for the piece. Errant Behaviors emerged from Topologies, Wilson's sculpture which was first shown in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. Wilson's idea of working with moving images came directly from Topologies -- projections of sci-fi scenarios, odd cityscapes, and futuristic worlds. In Errant Behaviors, the latent associations and meanings of Topologies are emphasized, enlivened, and acted out.

The following is taken from the project statement for the piece:

Errant Behaviors was created for the exhibition Perspectives 140: Anne Wilson at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (January - April, 2004). This first installation was comprised of two 8.5' wide DVD projections on opposing walls of a 24' square gallery, and two stereo soundtracks. Although there are always two image/sound projections playing concurrently, each subsequent exhibition site afforded new installation possibilities from 2, 12' wide screens at Art Miami Basel and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, to 2, 10' rear projected screens at Indiana University.

Each of the 12 image/sound animation segments in DVD1 was conceived to play in relationship to the 11 image/sound animation segments in DVD2. Because the play order is shuffled and there is no beginning or end, ongoing improvisational relationships are created.

The frame-by-frame hand construction of animation is very much like the structural development of lace - a structure that accumulates part by part over time through sequences of motions with the potential to replicate and expand infinitely. The hand processing of both the animation and the textile displays aspects of foible, imperfection, curiosity, and irregularly.

There are relationships between humor and darker aspects to the content in Errant Behaviors, evolving ideas about quirky growth, sometimes playful and sometimes sinister-seeming relationships, rude actions, repetitions and accumulations. The behaviors of Errant Behaviors have to do with aspects of impropriety, aggression and accident.

Shawn Decker's sound compositions utilize both processed recorded and found sounds to create environments of sonic activity which mirror the behavior of the visual images. The sound in some segments has a singular presence; other segments have a more cinematic presentation; some employ partially synchronized sound within a sonic environment. There is consideration throughout of the relationships between natural, human, and synthetic rhythms.

All of the images are stills from the videos. The video below is lowered resolution demo of the two DVDs (mixed to a single video) and the 4 channels of sound (mixed to 2 channels), designed to give a sense of how the two DVDs of the piece would interact.

about the artist

Shawn Decker is a composer, artist, and teacher who creates sound and electronic media installations and writes music for live performance, film, and video. His work is positioned at the intersection of music composition, the visual arts, and performance, using physical and electronic media to investigate, simulate and praise the natural (and unnatural) worlds.